DH toughens line on GP exception reporting

Primary care trusts must ensure they have a strategy in place on GP exception reporting, a health inequalities official has warned.

Speaking at a King's Fund conference last week, Professor Chris Bentley, delivery manager at the Department of Health's health inequalities national support team, warned that PCTs must ensure their policy was clear where GPs were exempting a proportion of vulnerable patients from their statistics under the quality and outcomes framework.

Financial penalties are being lifted from high-profile standards including cancer and elective waiting times, so far without attracting much attention. How is this happening? And will it work, asks Rob Findlay